What politics does to the army: divisions and reconfigurations to the military institution in the 27 May, 1960 coup in Turkey

Abstract

This article reconsiders the 1960 coup in Turkey, paying particular attention to the interactions and power relations in play, both within the army and between the army and civilians. I argue that the 1960 coup, rather than being an example of the military resolving a political crisis, is better understood as the army exploiting a social context which lent itself to portraying the use of force against the government and its allies as legitimate. First, I show that the 27 May coup consisted in dissident officers exploiting a context to push through sector-specific demands. Second, I depict the instability constituting the period of military administration and the following months. This enables me to show how the general staff, drawing on the support of civilian political actors, managed to re-establish the army’s hierarchy and stabilize its internal power relations. Finally, I analyze how the military institution managed to impose its authority over civilians during the years following the 1960 intervention, thanks to the judicial, economic, and institutional autonomy it acquired as of this first coup